Convalesce
by fictitiousburn
Summary: Azula gets a second chance (to be loved / to be saved / to be herself) despite her wrongdoings (an Azula-centric fic; parallel to Ameliorate)
1. de·te·ri·o·rate

**con·va·lesce **/ _to recover health and strength after illness; make progress toward recovery of health_ /** verb  
**

**Summary:** Azula fights (herself / her brother / her demons) to maintain her sanity.  
**Rating:** **M** for **Mature**; dark themes, character death, mentions of blood, and violence.  
**Notes:** This started off as a one-shot but I wanted to explore what would happen if Azula and Zuko grew up with the influence of Iroh instead of Ozai, so it will be continued after this. Feedback would be very much appreciated! Especially critiques on the writing style I used specifically for this series.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything affiliated with Avatar: the Last Airbender or any of the characters portrayed here.

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**de·te·ri·o·rate **/ _to make or become worse or inferior in character, quality, value, etc; to disintegrate or wear away_ / **verb**

Azula watches. Azula waits. And then, Azula strikes.

She slides her bare feet against the expensive hand woven rugs, the soles of her feet charged with electricity, with her own tiny form of lightning. She summons all the strength her five years have given her; she stares down at Ursa with every memory of her mother's favoritism brimming at the slightly unscrewed cap of her mind. She remembers the first time her mother discovered just how deeply twisted Azula was on the inside. Even though her eyes are closed, Azula can see her mother's eyes lingering over her with something that doesn't quite appear to be worry; maybe it's just plain (terror / discomfort / loathing). She's always had a strange look in her eyes when Azula would bring her turtleduck feathers to convince her that she had controlled the pond or when she had carved a wooden knife with her dagger instead of the ornate goblet her brother had fashioned her for her birthday—

_It wouldn't be any good for Mother to drink from it if her throat is slit, Zu-Zu._

—or when Azula had cut her arm deeply and just so casually lapped the blood gushing from her wound into her mouth. Azula knew her time to make up for it was now and she calls upon every (scrape / bruise / tear) thing that has ever hurt her and draws (a smile / the blade / her revenge) across her mother's neck. She smiles too, at the (wide / bloody / toothless) smile she makes below her mother's mouth – with her dagger.

_Finally_, her conscience sighs, _mother is smiling at me—she _loves_ me_.

It takes her no time at all to find her father's room. She never remembered her parents sharing (a bedroom / a kiss / a life) together; Ozai had never encouraged her to share her talents either. It's why she's always seemed so clumsy with the dagger when she was skilled with everything else. It was why she allowed him to think it was nothing more than a toy to her. It's why he doesn't hesitate to lift her up into his bed when she crawls into his room. She laughs as he feels the blood in her palms and scolds her for cutting herself. She laughs at him because she knows that as he frantically looks at her hands that he'll never find the origin of the blood. She laughs as she raises up, inflicting her fury, curving her blade through the air, and it separates the skin from bone and the muscles and tendons flexing underneath.

She laughs as it stops his heart in his chest.

_Her father was a fool for wasting a valuable resource_, her conscience purrs to the sight of blood at his back; _he wasn't using his heart for anything anyway_.

Azula grounds her teeth together. Of course Zuko is awake, sitting upright in his bed and reading by candlelight, his reading set aside to turn his eyes to as much of her countenance as he can make out in the meager lighting. Zuko is smarter than their father. The sight of blood on the tiny, trembling palms elicits no sympathy from the Fire Prince. Where her mother feared and her father knew not, the blueprints of the horrors his baby sister was capable of hung in the back of Zuko's mind. The royal siblings stare at each other in a deadlock. Azula does not advance onto Zuko because he expects her and Zuko does not flee from Azula because she expects him.

"Zu-Zu," her voice slips from her mouth and wisps in the distance between them, barely reaching him as his golden eyes watch her intently, like smoke wrapping around him in a cloud.

"'Zula," his voice is firm but quivers from his mouth; Azula can feel the aftershock of the nickname under her feet, threatening to crumble the ground from underneath her.

Zuko is the only member of her family who knows what she is capable of and finds himself (begrudgingly / resentfully / insufferably) loving her despite it. He is the only member of her family alive and the only one who can shake her back to her foundations. He reminds her with a soft, golden gaze, that she is only (his baby sister / the Fire Princess / human) acting like she has to be a monster, alone; she doesn't have to be either of those things.

Her dagger takes her hair as its first casualty and Zuko's wrist as its second.

Azula lets out a gasp as her brother's blood pours down the front of her and he rolls over her, pinning her hands to the ground. Her brain commands her body numbly; she shrieks and flails and fights him with every tiny bone in her body, with every fiber of her being, with every spark of inner fire than she can summon. But she can't free herself or her dagger from her brother's grip. He doesn't struggle, he doesn't reach to taper off the blood dripping down his hands and across her forearms, and he doesn't do anything but hold her down (and hold her back).

"I love you, 'Zula," he whispers into her neck and her eyes bleed ferociously from the wound his words commit. Her brain dares not register this as crying (crying is weak and Azula is not weak) but as carnage, as an injury to her psyche. He continues his assault. "Father loves you, 'Zula. Mother loves you, 'Zula. I love you, 'Zula." His words are as detrimental to her mind as her dagger would be to her own flesh. Part of Azula wishes Zuko had just stabbed her in the chest instead. But he holds her captive between the earth and his body, gently, safely, non-threateningly, comfortingly.

"Stop fighting," his command comes gently and Azula feels her humanity sliding back over her. She can feel her body still pulsing against him, her hands struggling and her legs kicking out at him, licking fire against his bed clothes (and Zuko does nothing; but Ozai _still_ finds him weaker than Azula). Her brain pushes her to fight and she does. She curls her fingers into claws and lashes out to take prisoners of his skin, to draw his blood to the forefront of his body, to make him stop trying to salvage her.

_End it_, her conscience pushes her.

She does.

Her dagger falls to the floor and Azula falls (into his arms) to the unbearable, irrevocable feeling that maybe her brother does love her.


	2. ap·pre·ci·ate

**con·va·lesce **/ _to recover health and strength after illness; make progress toward recovery of health_ /** verb**

**Summary:** Azula learns to love (her uncle / her brother / herself) through all circumstances.  
**Rating:** **M** for **Mature**; dark themes, character death, mentions of blood, and violence.  
**Notes:** I suspended a little canon to have Iroh working at a tea shop in the Earth Kingdom for this, but things will be getting interesting really soon. Again, feedback would be very much appreciated!  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything affiliated with Avatar: the Last Airbender or any of the characters portrayed here.

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**ap·pre·ci·ate **/ _to be grateful or thankful for; to value or regard highly_ / **verb**

Azula stares. Azula gasps. And then, Azula bolts.

She hikes her leg over the fence to propel herself over the edge, ready to sprint across the pasture, ready to make her own way back to the Fire Nation even if she's got to walk the whole way (Zuko walked the whole way carrying her on his back or in his arms; at least the parts that she had been awake for). She never stopped to think about just how long it took to walk anywhere, since she didn't do much walking herself. She can't remember the last time she saw her uncle, but as her brother stands in the doorway of the tea shop, she wants to go running for the hills. She knows she can't.

_You've slaughtered your parents, you imbecile,_ her conscience chides, _get back over there and deal with the consequences_.

She stalks past her uncle and her brother to clamber up onto a seat in the tea shop. The first attendant who approaches her gets their teapot and tea cups slapped to the floor before Zuko grabs her and hauls her back outside of the shop screaming and kicking. She doesn't (listen / care / participate). She stands idly as Zuko and Iroh converse and she kicks dust around her ankles. Zuko pulls her hand and presents her bloody fingernails to their uncle and he scoops her into his arms and whisks her into the (musky / dirty / foreign) smell of the tea shop.

Azula wakes up from her first nap of the day with a (bloodcurdling / fearsome / helpless) scream and Zuko has to smother her against his clothes to keep her from (screaming / crying / reacting). She wonders why he doesn't draw back as her fingernails dig into his skin, clinging to him, trying to hurt him, wanting to test him. He passes. Zuko holds her until she stills like the dead and carries her down the hallway of the small cottage to his uncle's room. Azula hates Iroh because he visits Zuko in the palace and never her (he has long since stopped visiting after Ozai made it clear who Iroh was worthy of between the two royal siblings). She never has any visitors.

"We all must go back to the Fire Nation."

Azula hates Iroh for resigning her to this fate, one more desperate than staying in her uncle's modest cottage. _It's your own fault_; her conscience doesn't hesitate to remind her.

"It'll be okay, 'Zula," her brother whispers to her as their uncle leads them back the way they came. Azula is hard pressed to believe him, but his words still soothe her, still comfort her, still relax her, still coax her into sleep.

Her eyes open and she can see Zuko walking along behind her, their belongings clutched in his arms and the daylight shining behind him. She screams before she can remember, she lashes out before she can assess, she fights before she can understand. Iroh lets go of her and she scrambles in the dirt (fighting with herself) until Zuko runs to her and lifts her like another pack in his grip.

Iroh doesn't offer to carry Azula anymore after that.

Zuko's sole task is to carry Azula and the packs, and Azula does not make it easy to carry her. When she can finally push herself to sleep, she wakes up screaming, harming, swinging, crying. When she is awake, she only stills when Zuko tells her tales of reassurances, of princes, of turtleduck feather caps, of carving knives, of healthy families.

Only the turtleduck feather caps are real and the rest is fiction, Azula determines, but she listens to the tales anyway.

It takes them a few days' time to return to the palace and Azula's life is ripped apart. The moment they enter the Fire Nation, she is seized and separated from her family. She fights, Zuko fights, Iroh fights. They all lose. Azula is brought to an island where crazy people stay and she cries every night that she remains there. She tears wildly at the décor of her room and demands to see Zuko, demands to see Iroh, demands that her demands are taken seriously. She has no idea what is happening to Zuko and Iroh in the aftermath of her parents' slaughtering at her hands but they know that it has been surmised to be her fault; after all, Zuko is not on the island of crazy people, she is.

She doesn't see (Zuko / Iroh / daylight) for a week.

During that week, the therapists try to come inside and talk to Azula. They ask her a lot of questions but when she had first been brought to the facility, she had screamed at the entire staff that she didn't want to answer any of their stupid questions. They still ask her those stupid questions. They ask her about her parents, but they're always careful to call them 'Ozai and Ursa,' and so Azula answers those few—

_Did you kill Ozai and Ursa?_

_Yes._

_Why?_

_Because they didn't want me, and I didn't want them._

_Why do you feel that way?_

_I don't. It's the truth._

—but other than that, she stays silent. One therapist made the mistake of asking her why she hadn't harmed her older brother, Prince Zuko. That therapist in particular quits two days after and no one visits Azula's room for two more days, except to plaster and earthbend the remnants of the charred hole that has been blasted through the far wall into the hallway. She eats only small quarters of her meals, just enough to stay conscious, to stay angry, to stay depressed. Whenever she manages to fall asleep, it is to awake in her nightmares to curtains of blood, to her mother gurgling her pathetic apologies and regrets through the slit in her neck and her father, clutching his chest and crawling to her on his knees, begging her to see that he does everything out of love for her.

Eventually she pushes these nightmares away.

Azula sprints and leaps into Iroh's arms as he comes to retrieve her in her room and she can feel Iroh recoil, flinching, waiting, anticipating, and then she can feel Iroh relax, relieved, elated, appeased. She tries her best not to let the demons push their way into her mind, push her mind into actions, push her actions into crimes. She clings to him as he carries her towards the facility entrance and she overhears him talking about rehabilitation, about helping her, and about her brother. Iroh is holding her but the only thing she cries on her way off of the island is Zuko, Zuko, Zuko.

She doesn't see Zuko for another week.

She becomes accustomed to Iroh's (tea / dinner / presence). Iroh becomes accustomed to her (vivid nightmares / violent streaks / fragile mentality). They form a distorted yin and yang; Iroh makes a way for some of Azula's more unsightly behaviors and Azula makes a way for some of Iroh's more irksome behaviors. Iroh allows Azula to see her parents before the Fire Sages have them taken away, but not for too long. Azula allows Iroh to see her cry by their bedsides before the Fire Sages have them taken away, but not for too long. Iroh starts to understand Azula and Azula starts to understand Iroh. But she still longs for Zuko, Zuko, Zuko.

It isn't until Iroh stirs her from her bedroom in the palace and whispers to her that she understands. "Prince Zuko will be gone for a long, long time, Princess Azula." Iroh starts to understand Azula and Azula starts to understand Iroh, but neither of them understands why they both begin to cry.


	3. en·dure

**con·va·lesce **/ _to recover health and strength after illness; make progress toward recovery of health_ /** verb**

**Summary:** Azula attempts to live (as a murderer / without Zuko / as an orphan) even though she lacks the desire to.  
**Rating:** **M** for **Mature**; dark themes, suicidal thoughts, mentions of blood, and violence.  
**Notes:** I wasn't going to update this until I finished the companion story from Zuko's point of view (mostly because it would clear up the holes in Azula's), but it's been a while so here we are. If it's unclear, Azula was in the mental facility for two weeks, further emphasized by her troubles in this chapter. **_If you have aversions to deeply suicidal themes and thoughts, I urge to you skip this chapter or read at your own risk._** Dedicated to **Ceg**, who has given me surprising inspiration to knock out a couple of chapters past this.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything affiliated with Avatar: the Last Airbender or any of the characters portrayed here.

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**en·dure** / _to hold out against, sustain without impairment or yielding; to bear without resistance or with patience_ /** verb**

Azula sobs. Azula cries. And then, Azula copes.

She doesn't leave her bed for two weeks but screeches for servants to come to her room and inform her of everything going on around her. She asks her servants impossible questions —

_Why would I try to kill my brother when I need him?_

_Why haven't I been executed yet?_

_Why was I born?_

— and gives them impossible tasks to satiate her (anger / depression / insanity). Azula struggles to understand how she could raise a dagger to her brother, the only person who loved her, the only person who helped her, the only person who wanted to save her. It chokes her like an invisible noose around her neck and it throws her into unconsciousness every single time. She wakes up and demands to know what Uncle Iroh is doing now that he's Fire Lord, she demands to know who has decided to keep her brother away, she demands that her demands are taken seriously.

She demands to know why no one has tried to kill _her_ in her sleep.

_They're all scared of you_, her conscience tsks at her gently, _as they rightfully should be_.

When he has time, Iroh comes into her room and updates her casually on the goings-on of the palace. He tells her about boring documents, about her parents' funerals, about their rooms being evacuated of their belongings. He brings her photos that they've kept of her but he keeps the ones of both her and Zuko to himself. As much as Azula demands (because begging and pleading is weak and Azula is not weak), Iroh never tells her about Zuko. Not even how he is, whether he's alive, what he's doing, whether he has asked for her. It tears her up inside more than the guilt, more than the nightmares, more than the consequences, more than the two weeks on the island for crazy people.

During the day, she tears all the books from her bookcases and orders her servants to replace them in (chronological / alphabetical / scientifical / astrological) order. They manage to the best of their abilities but no one is perfect in Azula's delusions and she tears all the books from her bookcases and orders her servants to grow brains immediately.

During the night, she sobs into her pillows, she screams into her pillows, she chokes into her pillows. She tries to harm herself and realizes Uncle Iroh wisely removed a majority of her more dangerous belongings (but right now, she doesn't think it's wise — she thinks it's torturous). She claws her fingernails up and down her arms until she cries. She throws herself against the walls and the ground until she is covered in bruises. She pulls her hair until blood meets her fingertips. She pretends as she falls asleep that she is being smothered, she kicks her legs and holds her breath and falls asleep as if she is dead. But when she awakes the following morning, she sobs into her pillows, screams into her pillows, chokes into her pillows.

When she awakes the following morning, she wishes she was actually dead, she wishes she was actually dead, she wishes she was actually dead.

"Azula, stop," her uncle's voice scalds her, or the tea she has poured over her legs scalds her, or the hole she has burned inside of herself in her brother's absence scalds her, or the teardrops falling down her face scald her. Iroh pulls her close, he pulls her tight, and he tries to squeeze the self-loathing out of her. He fails.

Every day that Azula wakes up, she regrets; (she regrets the day, she regrets waking up).

The Fire Nation plunges into a winter and Azula plunges into darkness. She doesn't (eat / sleep / hope) any longer. She just pines, she just cries, she just pleads with the spirits of her parents to return her brother. She holds her arms around her weakened frame and rocks in her bed; she holds one of her hands around her body and tangles the other hand in her own hair. "'Zula," she whispers to herself, mimicking Zuko, and then she screams, and then she cries, and then she wishes (out loud).

She wishes that she was crazy enough to hallucinate her brother's presence. She wishes that she was actually dead, she wishes that she was actually dead, she wishes that she was actually dead.

One morning, Azula wakes up and decides to have breakfast with her Uncle Iroh. The palace guards and his personal guards know better than to cross Azula, but it doesn't stop them from whispering as she comes out of her room in ripped and worn Fire Nation clothes, her hair tangled and caked with blood and dirt in her scalp. She doesn't wear shoes and she scowls at everyone who passes her. One of her servants quietly suggests that Azula wear her Fire Princess headpiece and she swears wildly, telling her servant that she should be thankful that she is already late for breakfast and doesn't have time for her as she walks down the hallways. At breakfast, her uncle smiles warmly at her and treats her like she is a normal guest at the table; he passes her things and asks her to pass things back.

Iroh doesn't think twice about offering Azula a basket of rolls; he does think twice after she takes the knife he passes along in the basket, heats it between her hands, and stabs herself suddenly in the stomach. The table erupts and Azula crashes to the floor, crying out from the sheer amount of dull, aching pain in her stomach (she had honestly hoped to die immediately and now felt a small pang of guilt for the way she had killed her parents). The blood surges around where her uncle presses his large hands to stop the bleeding and Azula, tears sliding out of the sides of her darkened hazel eyes, kicks at her uncle with all of her might before she starts to get dizzy and falls unconscious.

Azula stays in the Infirmary for four weeks. No one visits her except for Iroh; he hugs her over the restraints that keep her sedated and tied to the bed.

The New Year comes and goes and Iroh visits her more frequently after her incident as the days approach something Azula has probably forgotten. But her troublesome mannerisms, her continued suicidal behavior, her lackluster desire for life makes him ache in terrible ways for his niece. Azula starts to understand Iroh and Iroh starts to understand Azula, and what Iroh understands is that there is no help for Azula (except for her brother).

"'Zula," her imagination has gone insane as she sees her brother standing in the parted curtain of the Infirmary. Her wrists are raw and red from fighting her restraints but she sits up, gently rotating them so she can stare. Her hair falls over her face in thick, congealed strands and she huffs as she tries to push it from her face, as she tries to see clearly. She whispers, then she screams, then she cries, then she wishes (out loud). "'Zula, stop," but she repeats her ideas of hallucinations aloud.

"You're not real," Azula chants to the figure of her brother, "you're not real, you're not real. I wish I was actually dead, I wish I was actually dead, I wish I was actually dead."

It isn't until Zuko curls his nimble fingers around the restraints and pulls them loose — it isn't until Zuko wraps his arms tightly around Azula that she bursts, like a dam filled with contaminated water, with waste, with emotional baggage, with suicidal thoughts. "'Zula, don't wish that," he whispers into the tangled, desolate mess her hair has become in her state of duress. Azula sobs wildly, like she has witnessed the single most (awful / beautiful / destructive / amazing) thing. It doesn't matter that her brother's vice grip embrace is hurting her wound, despite it being healed. She sobs into Zuko's chest like her body is broken, like her tears will save her, like the world will end soon. And she holds Zuko so tightly that her fingernails draw out his blood, and she cries to Zuko so desperately that her gut wrenches, and she shakes against Zuko so violently that he plants his feet to keep her from falling out of the bed.

Azula is broken, but somehow she has made it this far without him. "Happy birthday, Zu-Zu," it takes her several long minutes to speak and Zuko somehow manages to smile and murmur a thank you and he never once lets her go.

She wishes he would never let her go, she wishes he would never let her go, she wishes he would never let her go.


	4. re·in·force

**con·va·lesce **/ _to recover health and strength after illness; make progress toward recovery of health_ /** verb**

**Summary:** Azula discovers where her brother has been and decides to try (to heal / to persevere / to improve).  
**Rating:** **M** for **Mature**; dark themes.  
**Notes:** This chapter doesn't contain a lot of mature rated material, but I will keep the rating in place just to be safe. I was going to wait until I was all caught up with Ameliorate from Zuko's point of view, but I hate that I haven't updated this for a month so here it is. Thank you to the wonderful **Lara Caspersen** for betaing all of these for me! They should be virtually error-free.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything affiliated with Avatar: the Last Airbender or any of the characters portrayed here.

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**re·in·force** / _to strengthen with some added piece or support; to make more forcible or effective_ /** verb**

Azula listens. Azula fathoms. And then, Azula understands.

She silently hopes that Zuko doesn't (actually / truthfully / undeniably) believe what the Fire Sages told him —

_Princess Azula is dangerous and you are in danger. Princess Azula is evil; Princess Azula will spoil you._

— but she nods along as he tells her what it was like, as he tells her how Uncle Iroh burst in to bring him back after a long ten weeks, as he tells her how much he missed her. She lets Zuko fix her in all the ways that Iroh could not. She allows him to (heal / care for / watch over) her like he had never left. Respectfully, he waits until Azula falls asleep to take care of her bruises, to bathe her, to wash her hair, to whisper stories to her unconscious form. Azula pretends to sleep so she can listen to her brother's voice (plead / beg / pray) that she does not make a liar of him, that she does not spoil him, that she does not kill him.

It is these quiet requests that push Azula away from Zuko.

She takes care of her own bruises, she bathes herself, she washes her hair, she cries herself to sleep hoping that this is not a true representation of her brother's faith. She wants him, she needs him, she asks him to believe that she is better, that she is not dangerous, that she will not spoil him, that she will not kill him the way that his silence to her requests kills her (on the inside). She has never wanted anything more in her life than for her brother to believe her. Because if he doesn't believe her, she reasons, then he will (resent / hate / abandon) her.

Azula wishes for too many things. She stops wishing for death in order to start wishing for a (successful / normal / chance at) life. Zuko urges her to wish for intangible things and work on everything else. He urges her to wish for patience and understanding and love and forgiveness and morals; he wants her to work on her (coping / firebending / social) skills. Azula tells Zuko that because he has just turned nine that he is wiser than her; he is more patient, more understanding, more loving, more forgiving, more ethical than her. "Just let me be me!" She had shouted at him.

"That's the problem," he had trembled when he spoke, "I can't let you be _that_."

It was the first time someone had rendered Azula speechless.

Zuko takes Azula into his arms and rocks her back and forth. "I love you, 'Zula, I do. But I don't want them to separate us anymore, okay? I just…I want you to be better." Azula nods against her brother's chest as she starts to understand. He was fine with the way she was, but everyone else was not. And Princess Azula would say that everyone else could rot at the bottom of a fire pit, but 'Zula knew that her behavior determined whether or not they'd allow her to see her brother. And ('Zula / the Fire Princess / the five-year-old) needed to see her brother.

The first day of tutoring begins and Zuko helps Azula dress as if she is going to school, he talks to her as if she is going to school, he wishes her a good day as if she is going to school. But she sits in the training area with two tutors who pour over books with her and after a while, she falls disinterested until her brother crosses into the courtyard. It is only his appearance that (inspires / motivates / forces) her to focus on her work.

Azula tries her best to be a good student, but Azula has a lot to learn that they don't teach you in books.

Azula finishes her first week of tutoring without a hitch and Zuko has a wide grin on his face as he walks into the courtyard. She stares at her brother, at his fair-skinned face, at the natural grin on his face, at the way his hair falls around his face. She has never seen her brother with a (happy / relaxed / natural) look on his face before. He doesn't say anything but he takes her hand and leads her through the rest of the courtyard and towards the training yard, where Azula normally meets with her firebending instructor. Zuko pushes her gently to stand on her mark on one side of the yard and he stands on the other side, still grinning, still happy, still relaxed, and he bows deeply.

"No!" Azula shrieks (wildly / fearfully / sadly) before she runs, without looking back, inside the palace. She runs until she reaches her room, she flings herself at her bed, and she sobs into her pillows (deep, gut-wrenching sobs that she can't hold back because she is weak). She doesn't remember how long it takes or when it happens, but she feels the bed shift and she feels Zuko's arms around her and she feels warmth spreading around her and she feels _safe_. His arms wrap around her tightly and he shifts her into his lap.

"'Zula," he hushes her, leaning his cheek against the top of her hair, "I won't hurt you, I promise." Fear sinks deep into the bottom of Azula's tiny chest and she begins to sob even harder at her brother's promise. She doesn't cry because she's scared, because she's not. She doesn't cry because she doesn't believe him, because she does. She doesn't cry because she feels relieved, because she's not. She cries because she realizes that Zuko doesn't understand why she's crying.

_You're not afraid that he'll hurt you_, her conscience revives itself; _you're afraid that you'll hurt him_.

Azula doesn't confide this in her brother and it takes her weeks to agree to spar with him. When she starts, her assaults are (timid / half-hearted / weak) and Zuko gives up halfway through the lessons to sit and comfort her. He stresses how important it is that she learns proper firebending techniques and how important it is that she can defend herself and how important it is that she learns how to control herself (and by fighting your brother, you will learn not to hurt him, and you will learn to control yourself).

Azula is afraid to learn, but she isn't afraid to try.

So she tries.


	5. ig·nite

**con·va·lesce **/ _to recover health and strength after illness; make progress toward recovery of health_ /** verb**

**Summary:** Azula (purposefully / maliciously / unfortunately) aligns the fates at the palace.  
**Rating:** **M** for **Mature**; dark themes.  
**Notes:** Again, this chapter doesn't contain a lot of mature rated material, but I will keep the rating in place just to be safe.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything affiliated with Avatar: the Last Airbender or any of the characters portrayed here.

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**ig·nite** / _to set on fire; kindle_ /** verb**

Azula trembles. Azula screams. And then, Azula fights.

She stares into her brother's eyes and Zuko stares back (effortlessly / calmly / patiently) as she feels her rage (boiling / bubbling / overflowing) inside of her chest. Zuko is going away for a week for a retreat with a master swordsman. Azula thinks this is foolish (and thinks that her begging should have convinced him to stay) and Azula is foolish for having begged him. She thinks that her father is rolling in his ashes at the thought of her begging. Zuko is stoic and stares at her, waiting for her to accept, waiting for her to relent, waiting for her to understand.

She doesn't.

She destroys her room piece by piece. Azula throws books, Azula throws pillows, Azula throws chairs, Azula throws _things_ while Zuko stands and Zuko stares and Zuko waits for Azula. She is five years old and she hasn't garnered a complete understanding of things yet; she'll be six in a few weeks but that doesn't impact her very much. She doesn't understand her brother's impassive appearance and she refuses to cry (although her conscience beats her mercilessly and repetitively and painfully).

_He won't even miss you_, her conscience lies, _and he certainly isn't coming back_.

Her conscience berates her and demeans her and lies to her and still, Azula allows her rage to get the best of her. She doesn't understand why she says what she says, but she knows the moment that she shrieks it, that she regrets it.

"I challenge you to an Agni Kai, big brother!"

Azula stares (fiercely / passionately / wrathfully) as her brother's face cracks, her brother's fists clench, her brother's eyes darken. She has finally gotten a reaction from Zuko, but she doesn't like it. He walks out of the room and Azula goes back to destroying her belongings.

_Now he definitely isn't coming back_, her conscience says with an air of condescension, _you're behaving like a child_.

She starts tearing pages out of books because her conscience has started to sound like her father. Azula hates vegetables, Azula hates turtleducks, Azula hates her mother's scent, Azula hates Uncle Iroh's beard, Azula hates when Zuko leaves her. But the only thing she hates more than everything else in the world is her father. She hates him for never seeing her as a prized daughter but as a prized pawn. She hates him for raising her but not loving her, for watching her but not protecting her, for challenging her but not caring about her.

Azula doesn't hate the nightmares about killing her father so much as she hates not being able to do it again.

Zuko returns to a tornado of parchments scattered on Azula's floor and he yanks her viciously. She instantly starts to cry, but Zuko doesn't release, he doesn't relax, he doesn't react. He pulls her along and Azula follows, trailing tears as she watches the hardened face of her older brother, her Zu-Zu. He is not weak. He leads her into the training yard and pulls his tunic off. He pushes her towards her mark and stands in a firebending stance. Azula cries even harder.

"Are you going to fight me, Azula?"

She falls to her knees with her forehead against the ground and sobs and sobs and sobs. She doesn't want to fight him but she doesn't want him to leave either. Fighting him will harm him, but leaving her will break her. "Please don't leave me," she sobs until she feels Zuko lifting her from the ground. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his shoulder and lets him rub her back. "I need you to stay, please stay, please stay, please stay." Azula doesn't know if she can function without Zuko. She certainly couldn't when she was on the island for crazy people. She didn't even bother thinking about how she had acted when they separated the royal siblings for those ten weeks of time, how it would have been longer if Iroh hadn't intervened for Azula's sake. Azula wasn't even sure if she could remember those times because of how dead she felt (and how dead she had wished she was over and over and over).

"Azula," his voice is firm and he has called her by her given name, "I have to. I promise you that I'll be back. I need to go and…you need to let me. You need to be without me."

Azula feels like her brother has just slapped her in the face with a fireball.

How dare he, she wonders. He has no idea how hard she has it when he's not around to (love / protect / save) her from herself. She is just a child. She doesn't know how to tell Zuko that she wants to die without him. She doesn't even know how to properly tell Zuko that she loves him. He is always telling her that he loves her and misses her and won't hurt her and she tells him nothing. All she knows now is that she wants him to stay and he won't stay. She wants him to stay and he won't stay. She wants him to stay and he won't stay.

She cries for an entire twenty-four hours after he leaves.

The week lasts for a century. Azula tries to live, tries to learn, tries to survive without her brother. She dreams at night that he kills their parents, that he is slitting their mother's throat and running their father through with his broadswords. During the day, she fights her tutors with her intellect and fights her instructors with her fire. Everything that threatens to consume her on the inside is matched for a flame that threatens to consume her opponents on the outside. Azula builds a canal to funnel all of it from the inside of her to the outside. She learns to love firebending because she can (scald / burn / ignite) things on the outside without hurting her inside.

When Zuko returns, Azula is every bit the firebending prodigy her father saw her becoming.

She hates herself for that, but she learns to accept the good things with the bad.


End file.
